Faded
by SensationTwisted
Summary: It all began with Chocolate Frogs for Draco Malfoy and ended with heartache for Hermione Granger. Hermione Granger wanted to help this man who seemed lost but instead lost her own way. One where Victoire is childish, love is not what the novels say it i.


**Disclaimer: **I own nothing. Everything is Rowling's. I have merely having fun. Although, I do know a set of twins I think. Does that make it such? No?

**A/N: **Hi all! This is a full length fanfiction that I am writing. This is NOT a continuation of Moments of Clarity (sorry). Hope you like it. _Uneven Pathways _will be updated soon; _Frankly My Dear _unfortunately is being put on hold as of now =)

_**Epilogue: Warring with Cinderella**_

**Draco's Epilogue: War's Embrace**

_War does not determine who is right - only who is left. -Bertrand Russell_

Although most would be reluctant to admit it, war was almost a poetic essence of the soul. Her song left many singing her fury, her mercilessness shook the communities and nightmares filled the cities. Many would vehemently deny this; deny the existence of darkness in their soul that craved it, but not him. Draco Malfoy had felt the cold and chilling embrace of war; indeed, he clinched it at one point. Sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, war had been his cold lover even before he was born.

_The _war brewed, simmered, and frolicked in the days before the Malfoy heir even arrived into the world. Narcissa Malfoy fought a battle with her own body to stay alive; her war for Draco began even before his birth. The aristocratic woman, hidden under the shadows of her two sisters, defended him against the merciless hands of death. To this day, those whom were familiar with the genteel woman were unable to grasp the sheer will and determination to bring about the child with a battle she should have lost, a battle many wanted lost.

Lucius Malfoy was at war with himself; his duty and his heart clashed in a cacophony unheard and undesired by the blond. Incapable of understanding his wife's unwavering belief in him, her forgiveness of his cruel and scathing nature, he hid. He could not understand why his heart galloped as the piercing sound of his wife's scream filled the manor. Nor was he able to comprehend her pitiful screams for him. However, it was a losing war and he no longer gave a damn, when he finally understood what his heart conveyed. He ran into the room where his wife hung unto life by no more than a thread, hoped it was not too late.

Thus, began the life of Draco Malfoy, born in times of war, both surrounding him and outside the world.

However, war never left her hold on the young boy. Draco realized as a child that his conception of war was different from other boys whom he played with. War was something to be proud about, as his father told him. War helped rewrite the true hierarchy of nature and that Harry Potter had only halted the cascading river of her fury when the Dark Lord fell.

Eventually, like all little boys, war soon enough became nothing more than a play. They played it as a game. Divided into two sides, purebloods versus the mudbloods, the boys breathed in the necessary ingredients of the upcoming war that would shadow their teenaged years.

And at the age of 11, Draco became a pawn in that very war. A friendship rejected by the Boy-Who-Lived, fostered a hatred perfect to mould by others. A war between what he was told as opposed what he observed. Hermione Granger became the shining example of a battle he fought within himself. His eyes told him that she was as capable as any purebloods, but his heart told him that was inferior. Therefore, he began a war of words. He spouted hateful words, in hopes of preventing his traitorous thoughts. His war was to make the mudbloods cry, to break down his enemy and belittle her. His words became a weapon that caused more harm than he could have ever hoped.

However, war was not a thing he could compartmentalize and bring it out in his convenience. A war brewed at home, between the two people whom he loved the most. His mother fought a losing battle to instill good in him against his father's desire for his son to be a weapon most fearful in the upcoming war. Behind closed doors, a battle of wills fought between two formidable opponents and Draco experienced his first loss of the war. He shed the clothing of the little boy whose world revolved around the woman who smelled faintly of vanilla and became his father's son.

Experienced as he was in the caress of war it still shook him when he first met the commander of the so-called army. Eager to prove himself he shook off the questions and the dread. War cleared his distorted perception of himself; he understood at the Astronomy Tower that war was not a lover but an enemy wanting to drown him. Nevertheless, like a masochist he kept on running back to her embrace.

It still shook him the courage in his mother, secretly ashamed that he could not be that stronger that the mudblood, whom he hated, spat in the face of war's terror. The veterans of wars still could make him shiver because he still remembered staring into the war-crazed aunt of his.

He watched the burning of the school he had despised. He saw his father and mother huddled in the corner, weary and defeated. His world torn asunder by the same lover whose embraced he once loved.

In the Wizengamot trial for his family, he finally understood that war was a game politician played. Still he embraced her because he understood that inside he was dead and that the few seconds of the icy cold embrace left him with that he would feel once more.

**Hermione's Epilogue: Breaking Cinderella**

"_In dreams you lose your heartaches"- Cinderella_

Seventh Year (1998)

She did not even understand why she cried. She sobbed for something intangible, something she could not understand. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she thought her heart was breaking. Pragmatically she understood that it was not heart breaking, she just felt betrayed, cheated but heart traitorous heart refused to listen.

There had been a point in Hermione Granger's time when she thought nothing could hold her down. Certainly, having faced that crazy bitch Bellatrix, nothing should reduce her to a mass of weeping sorrow. Yet, here she was huddled against the walls in the dungeon.

Because she craved for something a human touch, a hand holding her hands, telling her everything was going to be all right. Instead, everyone looked up to her, needing reassurances of things sacrificed were right. No one understood that she felt so lonely. She had been alone all her life but now a hollow sense of loneliness haunted her.

She understood that she had needed to let _them _fly. There would come a day when they would go her ways but she had not expected it to be this heart. She wanted to run back, take back her hateful words. She never expected to be the Prince in her Cinderella story, nothing but a shoe in her hands for memories.

He had yelled at her and she had yelled back. Why would he not understand? She had been a part of their lives for so long that she felt bereft without them. She stopped listening to the voice that told her to live your life and walk away. She clung to him, not understanding why he did not cling back.

What happened to the boy she had fallen for? Why was he not wiping her tears, telling her everything was going to be all right? This was not supposed to happen. She did not understand this uncharacteristic weakness in her, but weak she felt. She needed someone to hold her when the nightmares took over, suffocated her, drowned her in sorrows.

She hiccupped back a sob, once more. She was not sure when this depression took a hold of her but like a wet, clinging blanket she was unable to shake it. She blinked back tears, wished she could turn time; take back her hateful words. Her ears burnt remembering the heated as accusations of cowardliness and heartless rang through her mind.

A shadow fell across her body and she looked up, perturbed.

_Drat! It was Malfoy. _The last person she wanted to catch her with tears in her eyes. They might not have exchanged heated words of the past but she was still weary of him. She did not trust his silence nor did she trust his uncharacteristic sombre he presented this year.

He just stared at her. Hermione felt nervous, wiped her tears. She wondered who would be the first one to look away in their battle for dominance. Her eyes, still gritty with tears, were not up to par to lock with his gold gray eyes. But there was no way she was going to give in to the bigoted bastard and lose. Finally, he blinked.

"Crying over the freckled freak I see," he drawled. "I would have thought it would be beneath a war hero to cry over a boy."

She felt vulnerable in her position as she looked up at him.

She did not miss the bags beneath his eyes, nor did the state of hair almost as if he had run his fingers through them.

She said, "Didn't know it was your concern as to why I was crying, Malfoy."

He smirked, albeit faintly. "Well it is my concern when we could your row miles away, Granger. It is my duty to ensure that the innocence of the younger Slytherins do not get taken away."

"I was not aware that a Slytherin had any innocence. I thought you all were born sex gods or something like that," she rolled her eyes.

He blinked down at her, as if unable to believe the words had come out of her mouth. She instantly felt better. Any smugness she felt fled when he opened his mouth.

"_Why_ are you crying, Granger? Weasley was not the man enough to handle you?"

She gritted her teeth. "Why are men all assholes, Malfoy? If times get hard then the men get a leaving. You're all weak- the_ lot of you!_"

His eyes narrowed at her and he seemed to swell up. He hauled from her sitting position so quick she did not have the time to blink. He pushed her against the wall and she was disturbed to see how close his face was to her. She had never really been this close to him; that time in third did not count because she was too busy trying to punch him. She doubted she noticed the blue flakes in his eyes back then nor his fine and pale eyelashes.

"You know what the problem of girls is? You think life ought to be a fucking fairy tale. You should wait in your fucking ivory tower and wait for the prince to rescue you. Never you mind if that bloody tower is tall or what if the prince has a fear of height. But, woe behest me I am princess and the prince had better kill the dragon. Oh and after the poor sod kills some dragon he then has to take care of whatever baggage the princess might have. However, if the poor lad has his own baggage then he is not worth it. Well fuck that!"

She blinked, rendered speechless. What was there to say? What the bloody hell was that?

She gulped. "Malfoy, are you saying I was too harsh on Ron?"

He sighed. "As much as I hate the Weasel I am saying that you need to stop acting like a fucking fairy princess and act like Granger. I mean look at my parents, they might be assholes in everyone else's eyes but their love is undeniable to me. You have got to let the man have his insecurities, too."

Wow. Who would have thought it- Malfoy giving her relationship advice? One that made sick, in a perverted way.

"So I should let Ron have his insecurities?" she asked, hesitant.

He rolled his eyes. "Yes, Granger." Then, as if aware how much he had given away he blinked. "If you ever repeat this shit I will beat the shit out of you."

With that, he departed, without looking back.

Who would have thought her fairy godmother would be Malfoy? Hermione, left with a sense of wonder that things were not done here, watched him walk away.


End file.
